Til' Kingdom Come
by IrishButSober
Summary: It took Steve Rogers almost three weeks to convince his partner, Tony Stark, to even consider adoption. It took all of three minutes for Tony Stark to realize Peter Parker was the one for them. Superfamily Universe


A good home, a loving family; those are the kind of things most people aspire for. The idea of being able to come back after a long day to those who love and cherish you and know that you are safe and nothing can hurt you. What most don't know and sadly too many have to find out, is just how easily that safety and security can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye and leave you feeling very much alone in a dark and seemingly hopeless place.

Peter Parker was thirteen years old when he learnt this lesson.

He'd perhaps begun to understand it when he was seven years old and with a kiss and a promise, his parents abandoned him on the doorstep of his only living relatives. But it wasn't until a couple of weeks after his thirteen birthday, when he was kneeling in front of his dying uncle, desperately trying to stop the bleeding with his young, trembled hands that he truly understood what it was like to be alone. One stupid fight was all it took, from Peter's usually calm and well behaved manner, a single slip up that cost him the only father he'd really known.

They didn't catch the man who had done this and for many years onwards, Peter would hold a slightly bitter and unfair grudge for the police for failing to do so. It hadn't been planned, just a random thug with a gun who Uncle Ben would have never had to meet had Peter not stormed off blindly into the middle of the city. It had been his fault, his childishness, his stupidity that had gotten his uncle killed, he had killed Uncle Ben and at thirteen years old, nobody could convince the boy others.

It wasn't long after that 'they' came to take him away from his Aunt May. Local authorities, social workers, Peter couldn't remember and honestly wasn't sure if it mattered. After the trauma of losing her husband and the clear evidence that she wasn't financially able to take care of a child on her own, there was no option but to take him away from the only real family he had left. Peter cried, he yelled, he begged for this not to happen, as did his Aunt who had fought against the decision with everything she had. But sometimes fighting isn't enough and with a promise to come back to her, a promise he would never be able to keep, Peter was driven off and away from the only place he'd ever called home.

* * *

Tony honestly wasn't sure how Steve convinced him to even consider this.

He knows it was a gradual thing that had started not too long ago they'd gotten together, idle mentions of how he'd always wondered what it would have been like to settled down after the war, raised a family and lived the actual American dream. Not realizing the subtle seriousness of the comment, Tony had playfully told Steve he would have probably ended up overweight, divorced and trying to pick up girls half his age while drunkenly calling his ex-wife to demand the best years of his life back. Tony slept alone that night.

But eventually, even Tony had to stop kidding around when it became clear Steve was doing more than wishful thinking. He probably should have seen this coming, Steve had grown up in a different time, where a good job and a family to come home to was all that anyone really wanted and as much as Tony hated to admit it, Steve had said goodbye to most of that idea by just being with Tony to begin with. Still, Tony resisted and not just because of his general stubbornness, but of the actual issue of his compatibility with being a, god forbid, father. He tried to remind Steve of his more than imperfect father, Howard Stark, who had probably cursed the entire Stark line to become terrible parents with the lousy example he'd set and that was even before you got to his rather questionable moral standings, even if he didn't sleep around like he used. But being Steve, he had to go all sentimental on Tony and remind him that he wasn't his father, he was a good man, no, a great man and some other drivel about being a man of iron but having a heart of love or some after school crap. Problem was, Steve's after school special crap got to Tony far more than he liked to admit.

The thing was, Tony wasn't bad with kids. He enjoyed how easily he could fascinate them and how much they grew excited by his 'toys' and everything he had to offer and perhaps in private he would admit he had a slight soft spot for them. But the problem was that was all in small doses. He enjoyed the perks and amusement a child could bring, but had no real interest in finding out the horrific negatives of having a screaming, babbling infant who could probably compete or even beat Tony in their demand for attention; and Tony Stark was second to no baby when it came to being the center of attention.

Surprisingly, Steve had agreed with Tony when he'd brought this up and had apparently already admitted to themselves that their 'day jobs' and schedule just couldn't permit a brand new baby in the world. So they both agreed that they'd be picking one of the older kids, (if at all, Tony had quickly added) and after a little more reluctance and uncertainty, Tony agreed to go visiting one of the nearest children homes with Steve for a day. Only to find out that Pepper had already booked the day off for him, leaving him no last minute excuse to bail on this whole idea. _Traitor._

It was pretty much exactly how Tony had expected it, screaming kids running around and mostly oblivious to their parents, while some of the less active (psychotic) children hung in the background and tried not to get in anyone's way. They were told that it was best to have a look around, see if they got a connection with anyone in particular, emphasising it was important for both the adult and the child to feel something, which Tony almost responded with a follow up question of whether or not it was true that the sky was blue, but he held his tongue. Hardly the best impression to make to the people who would decide whether or not you'd be taking one of these shrimps home.

Sensing that Tony was probably going to do more damage than good, Steve suggested that perhaps Tony should take a look around while he asked a few more questions. In other words, go sit with the children while the adults discussed business; what a wonderful day this was turning out to be already. Deciding not to fight the idea, Tony just gave Steve a look and casually strolled off towards the mess of children, before finding himself a spot in one of the more quiet areas, where he could perhaps observe the children better; and if failing to do that, think of ways to punish Pepper for her cruel team up with Steve to send him into this hell hole.

"Uh, excuse me...?"

The oddly quiet and distant voice snapped Stark out of his thoughts for a moment and focused his attention on a young boy, whose hair and clothes looked like they had fallen out of a hedge – repeatedly. Apparently Tony's direct eye contact stumped the poor boy's ability to speak for a moment, before he vaguely motioned his hand towards Tony.

"You're...sitting on my...book. My book, just...right there."

More vague pointing ensued from the boy as Tony moved over slightly to the right and looked down, realizing he had indeed been sitting on a book of some kind; he really must not have been paying attention to have missed that. However, what really surprised him was the title of the book, _'The Edge of Physics' _by Anil Ananthaswamy, not exactly the most usual of books to find a child to be claiming ownership of. Slowly picking up the tattered book, Tony slowly handed it back to the boy, a curiosity in his calculated brown eyes.

"Good choice, I've read it a couple of hundred times myself. How are you finding it?"

The boy seemed both surprised and a little bit excited by the response, clearly not used to having someone to talk to about this kind of thing. Awkwardly taking the book, he seemed to sit down beside Tony, before realizing how close he was and shuffled a little to the left, clearly afraid to be getting in the man's personal space; it was almost endearing.

"It's my favourite, my uncle gave it to me a few years ago and I haven't been able to put it down since" He admitted, surprising Tony quite a bit. A few years and he managed to get through it, repeatedly? Either this kid had more than a bit of mind to him or he was just spouting nonsense to try and somehow impress Tony and somehow, the man doubted it was the latter of the two.

"A man of good taste, if you get the chance you should read The Cosmic Landscape, phenomenal book, just between us science lovers."

A genuine smile seemed to grow across the boy's lips, grasping the book in his frail looking fingers as he turned back to Tony.

"I'm pretty sure they're all out of those here, but they might have some Winnie the Pooh instead."

Cheeky. Tony approved.

A pleasant silence filled the space between the two of them for a moment, but Tony soon noticed that the young boy seemed to be losing his smile rather quickly and seeming to look more and more uncomfortable. Shit, had his silence worried the boy? He didn't look exactly like the most confident of kids and he was probably thinking Tony had already lost interest in him. Fuck, think of something to say Stark, a man most people would say had too much to say and he was being stumped by just some kid? Think of anything to say, anything!

"So, been here a while?"

He should have stuck with the silence.

The moment he said it, he was already kicking himself. Smooth Tony, two minutes in and he was already insulting orphans; clearly he was already gonna be out of the race for 'parent of the year'. As expected, he seemed to flinch at the question, but surprisingly shook his head a response, before casting his gaze down and fidgeting with the worn edge of the book cover.

"Just a few months, I'm...new, I guess..."

There was a clear message in those words, even if the boy didn't realize it. He was new to all of this, being orphaned and being alone, which somehow made it all the more worse for Tony to hear. This bright boy had known what it meant to have a family, to have someone there for him and clearly it had all been taken away from him, no wonder he was clutching that book his Uncle had given him so tightly.

"Peter!" He seemed to suddenly blurt out, catching Tony off-guard and looking more than a little bit surprised by the sudden outburst. Clearly seeing his reaction, the boy apparently named Peter flushed furiously and seemed to quick retreat back to his shelled self. "My name, it's...Peter" He repeated again slowly, his fingers nervously tightening around that book. Finding himself smiling despite himself, Tony nodded his head a little and offered a hand to Peter, who looked at it with a shy uncertainty.

"Nice to meet you a fellow science buddy, Peter. Call me Tony."

There was that smile again, where Peter seemed to come out his shell for just a second and grasped Tony's hand with his smaller, softer one and shook with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. There seemed to be a moment of pause when Tony was about to pull away, he wasn't sure what you'd call it or even how best to describe it apart from a horrific ache when he realized Peter didn't seem to want to let go of his hand.

"Tony"

Steve's voice suddenly snapped him out of his thoughts and he turned his head sharply to him, his hand quickly detaching itself from Peter's, a little faster than he probably should have.

"There are a few forms we have to fill out before anything can happen, so we should..." Steve trailed off, slightly curious as to what he'd apparently walked in on. Nodding his head quickly, Tony shot to his feet a little quicker than he intended and began to walk towards him, before sharply turning around and facing Peter, pointing at the young boy all of a sudden.

"Just, don't go anywhere, alright? Read another chapter of that book and I'll be back."

Tony didn't wait to hear or see a response from Peter and instead just turned on his heel and grabbed Steve's arm and guided the clearly bewildered man out of the room. Once they were a safe distance, Tony let go and awkwardly looked around, suddenly feeling very much out of his comfort zone, which became apparent to Steve even through his utter lack of understanding as to what the hell was going on.

"Tony, what's going on? I left you for like ten minutes and now you're acting-"

"I think I found him."

Steve paused for a moment, taken back Tony's interruption. It took a moment to sink in what he meant, but when it did, Steve wasn't sure if the man was being serious or trying to once again tell some kind of inappropriate joke.

"You were with him for about fifteen minutes Tony; it took you three weeks to warm up to the idea of even coming here." Steve noted cynically, though with all right to considering Tony's attitude to this whole idea. This wasn't like buying one of Tony's many cars, this wasn't an impulse by and the last thing Steve needed was for Tony to get bored a few hours in.

"Yeah, well, I'm here now and I'm telling you, I found him while you were trying to make nice with the woman who runs this place, who, by the way, is smelling of something that isn't encouraging anyone to step foot into this place."

"Really, so you just happened to choose him?"

"I didn't choose him." Tony grumbled a little bit, shoving his hands in his suit pocket, before casting his gaze back to Peter as he stood in the background, shyly gazing back at Tony and offering an awkward wave, before stuffing his face back into his book in sheer embarrassment.

"He chose me."

Now that comment took Steve by surprise and he honestly had no way of responding to it off the bat, something that Tony quickly picked up on and decided to exploit for everything it was worth.

"Steve, I'm telling you, considering I barely came to this thing with any aspirations of walking out with anything other than a wasted day, I'm telling you that amongst all these screaming infants and potential nightmares, I think I've found him."

Deciding to ignore Tony's decision to apparently insult a group of orphans, the super soldier focused instead on the honesty and downright seriousness of the man's voice. Looking at Tony, Steve could tell that this wasn't some kind of flickering interest and turning to gaze at the boy awkwardly reading over his book with a shy smile across his young face, it wasn't hard to see why Tony had become attached the way he had, so very quickly.

"What's his name?" Steve finally asked, causing a proud and triumphant smile to cross Tony's face. Bloody smartass.

"Peter."

Turning back to the sight of the boy once more, Steve sighed gently and began to walk back towards the sitting boy, knowing all too well that if it had taken that little time for Tony to fall, Steve would be smitten within minutes.


End file.
